Bea­cons­field soak up South­well ex­pe­ri­ence

For­mer Scot­land in­ter­na­tional be­comes con­sul­tant coach

BEA­CONS­FIELD RFC are hop­ing some of Hugo South­well’s vast ex­pe­ri­ence will rub off on their squad after the for­mer Scot­land in­ter­na­tional joined their coach­ing staff.

The ver­sa­tile 34-year-old, who played at full back, cen­tre and wing for Wasps, Bris­tol, Worces­ter, Ed­in­burgh and Stade Fran­cais, won 59 caps for his coun­try but hung his boots up a year ago due to in­jury.

Since then he has been coach­ing the backs at Ross­lyn Park and work­ing as a rugby me­dia pun­dit, but he has now agreed to be­come con­sul­tant coach at South­ern Coun­ties North side Bea­cons­field.

South­well lives lo­cally and has a son play­ing in the club’s minis sec­tion and, as a keen crick­eter, has also turned out for Bea­cons­field Cricket Club.

He will take coach­ing ses­sions once a month, the sec­ond of which took place this week fol­low­ing a suc­cess­ful first one in De­cem­ber.

Club head coach Si­mon Tat­ter­sall said: “We have a young coach­ing team here, whereas Hugo has been there and done it all. He gives good ad­vice on lit­tle as­pects of the game which can of­ten be over­looked.

“It’s re­ally im­pres­sive lis­ten­ing to him as he fo­cuses on the lit­tle things, the core skills you have to get right to be suc­cess­ful. We’re all learn­ing from him.

“He coaches very well and pitches it at the right level – he knows it’s Bea­cons­field and not Wasps. It’s good for the guys to have a dif­fer­ent voice and it gives them somebody to look up to.

“We have a young team too, with three U18s in the first team at the mo­ment who are do­ing re­ally well. One of them, Jack Hockin, who is still at school, scored one of our tries on Satur­day.”

New cen­tre Phillip Seymour also bagged two de­but tries on

Ac­tion from Bea­cons­fi­field’s win over Alch­ester and (above left) Bea­cons­field’s new con­sul­tant coach, Hugo South­well Satur­day, while prop James Wat­son crossed the line too as Bea­cons­field se­cured a 24-3 bonus point win over Alch­ester, end­ing a run of three suc­ces­sive de­feats in what has been a sea­son of ups and downs since switch­ing side­ways from London Two NW.

Tat­ter­sall added: “It’s been a tran­si­tional sea­son. This is a much more for­ward-ori­en­tated league, whereas London League teams would throw the ball around. It’s a far more phys­i­cal league too, with no love lost be­tween the Bucks teams. We have lost four games by just three points – three of those with the last kick of the game – but a new year means a new start.”

Else­where in South­ern Coun­ties North, Drifters gave lead­ers Stow-on-theWold a scare be­fore go­ing down 21-16, with Cameron Den­ton run­ning in a try and Matt Mor­gan kick­ing the rest of the points for the Farn­ham Common side.